SCORE- 6/10

Synopsis (Objective)- In a modern, post-apocalyptic Earth, where books are scarce, there wanders a man, Eli (Denzel Washington), with a plan. He holds in his possession a book that is sought after by a greedy man (Gary Oldman) envious of its ability to control the masses, that book is the Bible. Eli overcomes many obstacles to protect it and keep it away from the tyranny of man while also protecting a curious young woman (Mila Kunis), who has tagged along for the ride.

Synopsis (Subjective)- Another post-apocalyptic movie. Except, this time the protagonist is an intellectual, kung-fu fighting, bible preaching black guy who hangs around a hot and pretending to be innocent female character who is worthy of four circle jerks in one sitting. While the very well written, cold as ice antagonist does everything in his power to take control over Eli’s book, the Bible, where he has nothing but evil intentions on what to do with it.

BC- First off, let me say that I consider myself a Hughes Brothers fan. They made, in my opinion, the greatest black ‘hood’ movie of all time, Menace II Society, which in my book (of Eli) earned them a solid 9. They also made the highly underappreciated From Hell, with Johnny Depp. That being said, they disappointed me with The Book of Eli. Here is why:

To begin, it is way too over-stylized with its color grading and post-production cinematography. Which, if the story, acting, shots, music, pacing, editing and dialogue were above average then I guess that wouldn’t bother me too much. But since everything minus the editing was just bordering average, I felt that the look of the movie was used as scapegoat for its lack of ingenuity. Second, I felt that Eli’s ‘coolness’ was over-the-top and too obvious for my taste. He was like a poor man’s The Man with No Name (The Good The Bad and The Ugly). I mean, one of the first shots we see is him listening to his iPod (third generation, I might add. eww.) with Dr. Dre’s famous ‘Beats by Dr. Dre’ in-ear headphones…ok wait, so we are expected to believe that the iPod still has enough charge for him to listen to a two minute song, that’s fine I guess, but that also he has an iPod from 2003 with headphones from 2009??? NO. Sorry. Of course the next morning, he wakes up and the iPod reads’ low battery’ and it dies…which one of the two genius brothers though of that? I’m gonna go with Albert. 

Now for some positive mentions…I really liked the fighting scenes. I felt that they were tackled very well and that it wasn’t over-the-top. I also enjoyed the pacing of the movie. It knew when to slow down, went to add music, when to speed up, when to add ambient sounds and it especially knew when to show Mila Kunis :) The shots I felt were very mature and it didn’t try to be ‘Snatch 2’ or even a Spike Lee joint for that matter (constant, epic camera movements). Also, all the actor’s performances were above average, except maybe Mila Kunis’s. Now, as usual, Gary Oldman brought the house down. Not only was his character the most interesting of the ensemble, but his performance was more than believable and intense without him even trying so hard…but it’s Gary Oldman! He can make the main role in ‘Chocolate Rain: The Life and Times of Tay Zonda’ make you think twice about how good Daniel-Day Lewis’s performance in There Will Be Blood REALLY was.